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The superhero and Avenger known as Speedball sat in a squatting position on a burnt out play structure in the middle of an abandoned park at the heart of Hammer Bay, Genosha.
{{ “Give me a sit-rep, Speedball,” }} Warbird chimed into his radio.
“All quiet on the Genoshan front. Nothing new to report, boss lady.”
{{ “Keep your eyes peeled. The X-Men don't exactly fight fair.” }}
“Geeze. Who could blame 'em?” Speedball grumbled to himself under his breath as he looked around the remnants of the mutant capitol of the world.
A quick and sudden breeze caught Speedball's attention. He perked up as a chill ran down his spine and looked around the area. He turned around, on full alert, but another quick and sudden breeze drew his attention back to where he was originally looking. He then saw a figure made of ice darting towards an alleyway across the street of the park.
“I think I got something here!” Speedball said over his radio. Multi-colored balls of energy exploded from his body as he bounded off the play structure and bounced after his target.
Before he could bounce across the street, a wall of ice flashed before him and he ricocheted off of it with a shocked expression on his face. Before he could adjust his trajectory, another wall of ice appeared behind him, and he bounced off of that in a similar fashion towards the street pavement, then off the street back into another ice wall, speeding up his momentum rapidly. He found himself surrounded by walls of ice at all angles, each one bouncing him back into another.
Frantically trying to regain his rapid loss of control, Speedball accelerated his kinetic momentum and crashed through one of the ice barriers, causing an explosion of ice and snow. He flew through the air, but then crashed back down into the ground, surrounded by shards of ice and snow.
“Ughh... what the heck just happen...?” Speedball grumbled as he began to stand up. He felt a violent chill throughout his body and began trembling. He began to huddle and rub his arms.
“Hey, sorry to bug ya, but do you know when the L line comes?” a voice said from behind. Speedball turned around suddenly and instinctively tried to activate his kinetic force field, but to his shock found it only weakly flickering.
“Aww cripes – !” he muttered as he saw a giant ice fist crash into his face. The X-Man known as Iceman struck him again with his other fist. Speedball stumbled back from the blows and was then hit by a powerful beam of ice that propelled him back into the ice and snow on the ground, shivering and stunned, and quickly losing consciousness.
“Ricochet's down for the count, gang,” Iceman said over the mutant team's telepathic network.
“Score another one for the X-Men.”
“Speedball.”
“Hunh?”
“His code name is Speedball,” Beast explained.
Iceman rolled his eyes and generated a ice sled under him.
“Okay, well, whatever,” he said as he slid away from unconscious Avenger buried in mountains of ice and snow.
“The tweaker's out cold. Heading to the rendezvous point.”-----------------------------------------